Archives for: November 2007, 10

My Darling Daughter has wanted to lose a little weight and reshape her body. It is easy for teenage girls to become compulsive about their weight, and I think DD might have fallen into that trap had it not been for the BTD. When she starts drifting in an obsessive direction, we go back to the BTD books and look at beneficial foods, portion sizes, and exercise. Because we have kept our eyes on scientific fact rather than feelings, it has kept her from crossing the line into unhealthy practices, and it has kept me from worrying.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home from school yesterday and agreed on salmon, pumpkin, and raw veggies for dinner.

I was pleased to find that wild caught salmon was within my budget, and I selected a fillet. When the butcher punched the code into his computer it came up farm raised. I stopped him, and he corrected the code. Just to be sure, I said, "You are selling me wild caught, right?" He was a talkative butcher, and he launched into a long explanation

He says that wild caught fish are not truly wild. Fishermen go out into the ocean and screen off an area so that the salmon cannot escape. They give them additional food and monitor their growth. The salmon are harvested when they reach a certain size, which explains why all of the fish often look identical. Farm raised fish live in man made ponds. Wild caught fish live in man controlled parts of the sea. But neither is truly swimming wild or climbing salmon ladders to get back to inland breeding grounds.

If this is true, it makes me reevaluate my thinking about salmon, especially considering the price difference between farm raised and wild caught. My reason for preferring wild caught was my belief that they ate a more natural diet, lived in less crowded conditions, and were exposed to less impurity in their water. But if the studies compare truly wild fish with farm raised, they are not comparing what is really available in my local market.

When I fix canned pumpkin for myself I use the 100% pure pumpkin rather than the pumpkin pie mix. I warm it with some butter or ghee and a little cinnamon. Because DD is eating pumpkin with me now, I wanted to add less fat. So I mixed in a generous sprinkle of cinnamon and then, instead of the butter I added 1 Â½ teaspoons of ginger juice. The flavor was delightful, and it was beneficial for us both. We just finished eating up the left over pumpkin for lunch.